Show HN: GDSL – 800 line kernel: Lisp subset in 500, C subset in 1300
firthemouse.github.io38 points by FirTheMouse 4 hours ago
38 points by FirTheMouse 4 hours ago
GDSL is written in C++ with use of STL, templates and lambdas, so it's 2600 lines of such C++ source code. There is no self-hosting: neither the LISP compiler nor the C compiler can compile itself. No operating system is implemented, the word kernel in the title means something else.
FYI Here is a 700-line subset-of-C compiler which can compile itself: https://github.com/valdanylchuk/xcc700 . FYI The linker and the libc are not included.
Looks interesting. The next step may be to show some little fun examples built with it.
Here's my similar project from a few years ago, in case you want to compare notes:
I would love to compare notes, reading through Mu has given me a lot to think about that I may be writing about soon.
I see in Mu a mirror of my own aspirations, GDSL is something I intend to take down to the metal once I have access to a computer where I can reach deeper than my Mac allows. Though the path from here to an OS is by no means a straight one.
Mu is what I would call a MIX layer, the real substance of a process which turns one line of code into the next. Arguably, a MIX is the core of what makes a program a program, and the work of Mu, like Lisp and others, is to elevate it high enough that it becomes the whole interface.
For a deeply curious mind the MIX is the only thread they wish to pull. Because the comprehension of things at their most fundamental level is fuel enough. Unfortunately, the majority of people are not nearly so curious, thus the dominance of languages like Python.
So what makes Python so much more appealing than direct control? Pure TAST. Sugar for the hungry, and grammar that lets you say everything while knowing nothing. Somewhere, between the sugar and the substance lives the real heart of what makes a tool, and that’s what I’ve been picking at from both angles.
I would be curious to see how these could be unified, a Python TAST, Rust or Haskell DRE (for type systems and borrow checking) and a Mu MIX underneath. Let the user be lured in by the promise of ease, look under the hood to see the entire compiler fitting in just under ten thousand lines, and burrow their way down to the MIX and fundamental understanding.
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I thought you needed 100k lines of code for a C compiler. https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/building-c-compiler